Paper
is like the skin of a beloved. You touch it, you feel it, you
capture the structure of its surface, you smell it and you look at
its color. If I wouldn’t be an artist I would work in
a paper store. Or at the DM - market (The DM market is a fancy
version of Duane Reade, with organic products). I like the
DM – Market. I like to look at all these products. I
have to admit that I have an Anti - Cellulite Cream complex, and
so I am often at the DM - market. I steadfastly buy an anti-cellulite
cream, although - without bragging – I do not have cellulite
at all. I almost never use the creams anyway.

The
other day at the beach, a man said to me: “From behind you
look like a college girl, but your face!” Merci Beaucoup! Quel
connards! Perhaps I should start specializing in facial creams. For
my face I only use very cheap creams. If I think about it,
many people have asked me lately if I have dry skin. Further,
they do not call me Miss anymore, but Madame. Might this be
a sign to change to an anti-wrinkle cream? But, to tell you
the truth, I love wrinkles. There’s nothing more beautiful
than to look into a face that speaks about life.

My
affinity for paper, however, probably comes from the fact that I
grew up next to a paper mill. In the village where I used to
live, there was nothing but a skyscraper, a paper mill and a little
deli called ADEG. It always smelled of rotten eggs and wet
wood. The paper, produced in Nettingsdorf was brown Kraft paper,
rough and strong. Every summer I worked in the factory to earn
money. I was a real paper specialist.

The
smell of rotten eggs reminds me of my childhood, a childhood that
consisted of playing games. School, I do not recall at all. We “five
high-rise kids” played for hours: ‘circus,’ ‘rich
and poor,’ ‘gymnastics,’ ‘poor children,’ ‘father-mother-child’ (Let’s
pretend, we would say, the father is at war), ‘hide and seek,’ ‘dodge
ball’ or the Rudi Carell Show “Am laufenden Band” – a
show where people had to answer different kinds of questions. When
we played the Rudi Carrell Show, one question would always be: “How
would you like to die?” A) to be shot B) to drown - or
C) cancer? All of us always wanted to be shot, even though
Margit assured us, drowning is totally beautiful, because her mother
once almost drowned and that wasn’t bad at all.

From
that time comes my fear of being shot through a door. If I
tell my friends about it, they always ask me: “Why on earth
would somebody shoot you through a door?” That’s
right, it is absurd. But secretly I think: Why not?

We
also played victims of a neutron bomb. That was the time of
the Cold War. The only survivor was Bettina, who ran screaming
for hours through the pouring rain. The rest of us kids were
moving like robots. That’s how we imagined being hit
by a neutron bomb!

At
that time, Bettina was the only one who survived. Now she is
no longer here, lives in a world that is still unknown to me. Bettina
was not shot and did not drown. Bettina has fought like a lioness
against this disease we call cancer. She fought with so much
humility and pride and strength. In defiance of all prognoses
she had fought for years to see her son playing the way we used to
play. She never complained and in all her pain, she still had
the strength to console me in my solitude. I did not have the
feeling that I would be able to comfort her. When I saw her
becoming weaker and weaker, I cried on her bed instead of consoling
her. And when I once - when she writhed in pain and vomited
- took her in my arms, nothing better came to my mind than: That
sucks! She looked at me saying: That really sucks! Then
we laughed.

I
miss Bettina. When I arrived at the airport in Vienna after
a couple months in NY, and turned on my Austrian mobile phone, it
told me: Last call: Bettina September 22, 2008. I dialed her
number, even though I knew she would not pick up anymore. Instead
of the accustomed: “Bettina, hello. Please leave a message” I
heard instead: “This is the voicemail of 0996. . . .” During
our last phone call I was in a payphone on Time Square. It
was loud and we could barely hear each other. Before she hung
up, she would tell me that she would wait for me. I hoped that
she would wait for me in this world. But now I know that when
it’s time for me to leave, she will wait for me in this other
world.

When
I saw her the last time I brought her water colors and a water -
color pad. She repeatedly stroked the paper, what beautiful
paper! How many summers had we counted woodchips together and
taken paper samples?

Since
Bettina’s death, I now know for the first time in my life that
I will die. I always knew it, but now I really know it. Everything
is transitory, nothing belongs to you. Nothing is left behind,
except perhaps, the love that you give to someone.

I
take a sheet of paper, not an expensive one. Expensive paper
scares me. I look only at expensive paper in a paper store. I
take a piece of brown Kraft paper, stroke this rough surface and
draw.

Doris
Neidl is
an Austrian born artist who lives and works in Vienna, Austria,
and in Brooklyn, NY. She studied at the University of Art
and Industrial Design in Linz, Austria, and graduated in 1996 with
an MFA. Her work has appeared in a number of solo and group
exhibitions nationally and internationally. Her writings
have been published by several publications and in 2008/2009 she
received a writing grant from the Austrian Government BMUKK for
her project “The Women in Symbols.” She has participated
in short and long-term artist residences in the United States,
France, Italy and Czech Republic. She is online at DorisNeidl.com.